The Shinigami King
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: Their stories didn't end when their names were written in the Death Note. Hades knows that, because he watched their souls being judged. ONESHOT


**MAJOR spoilers (like, GARGANTUAN) for both Death Note and Percy Jackson and the Olympians if you haven't read one or the other…**

**Just saying.**

**Warning: follows manga. Not anime, not movie (there's a movie? Really? Just found out, like, three minutes ago), nada. Just manga. Any dates the reader is confused with, just take with a grain of salt please.**

**ONESHOT. Will not be continued. I don't own. Et cetera.**

* * *

It started with one.

His name was Kurou Otoharada, he was forty-two years old, and the cause of his death had been a heart attack. Or, at least, so said the report. Hades dismissed this one without a second glance. He knew what this man's punishment would be –– Fields of Punishment, no doubt. The man had held eight people from a daycare center hostage, with plans to kill them if the money was not handed over. He deserved to die. Fields of Punishment for him.

One was just the beginning.

Long story short, Hades soon realized that the Fields of Punishment needed to be extended. Maybe another wing? He made a mental note to contact Alecto about building more torture devices for the influx of criminals that just kept pouring in. Because that was what they were, by far. Many of the spirits that flooded into the judgment halls were criminals, and it seemed as if all the criminals had died of heart attacks. Fields of Punishment for all of them. Hades cared very little for the affairs of the mortals in the world above, but something –– a strange, niggling feeling –– kept nagging at him. Something was not right about this. Heart attacks… criminals… that strange instinct that he couldn't pick out… there was something just not right.

It was confirmed only a few days later, when thirteen FBI agents stormed into the judgment halls. They had been investigating someone called… Kira? What kind of name was that? Kira was apparently a mass murderer of some sort, who killed criminals with an unknown power. This caused much controversy among the judges, some of whom believed Kira was the hero, and some of whom believed Kira was the villain. In the end, a man, called Raye Penber, stepped forward and calmly presented his defense. Kira was a murderer, he said. Kira, whose real identity was a college-aged young man named Light Yagami. He had seen Yagami's face before he died. Kira had not only killed the criminals but had not hesitated to kill the ones chasing him. This caused only more argument until Hades himself, who had been lurking in the shadows of his private balcony, stepped forward and said one word, "Elysium."

The judges stared at the Lord of the Underworld. "But sir –– " protested King Minos.

Hades cut the ghost off with a wave of his hand. "They're holding up a line," he said. "Just get them to Elysium and move on."

Minos hesitated, then nodded. "Yes. Elysium."

Raye Penber inclined his chin once, then nodded.

A woman came not long after. Her name was Naomi Misora, and the cause of death was suicide. Her fiancée had been killed, she patiently explained to the judges, and, after speaking with a young man named Light Yagami, had been so devastated by her loss that she had killed herself. Light Yagami… was this the same man who Raye Penber had claimed to be Kira? It was Elysium for her, Hades knew immediately as he watched from his private balcony. She had saved quite a few lives in her time. Yes. Elysium. And so it was, but before Misora could even leave the judgment hall, another spirit appeared out of nowhere and took his place at her side. Raye Penber, Naomi Misora's fiancée. Together, they walked to Elysium, with smiles on their faces that would have lit up the entire Underworld.

* * *

It was nearly a year before anyone else of any importance or interest to Hades entered the judgment halls. One was a white-haired old man in a suit; the other was a slouching, wide-eyed young man in loose clothes and, surprisingly, no shoes. Cause of death: heart attacks on both parts. The old man was Quillsh Wammy, alias Watari. The young man was L Lawliet, alias Ryuzaki, alias Hideki Ryuga, alias Eraldo Coil, alias Deneuve, alias L. _What is with all these fake names? _wondered Hades momentarily until he saw their reports. Lawliet was known as the world's greatest detective, and Mr. Wammy was known as the only one who could get in touch with him.

They looked bewildered for a few moments. Lawliet seemed to realize where he was before his companion did, and murmured the answer into his ear. They bowed before the judges, and at this the judges smiled humorlessly. Hades only stared at them. Japanese folk, definitely.

There was some discussion among the judges. After about half an hour –– even if the defendant's sentence was obvious, at least one of the judges always seemed to find something to argue about –– the young man named Lawliet raised his hand tentatively. When the judges gave him permission to speak, he stepped forward, cleared his throat, and said one word. "Shinigami."

To the spectators it seemed as if Hades walked right out of the shadows, which, of course, he did. "What did you say, boy?" he snapped, striding towards Lawliet with surprising speed for someone wearing such long robes. The young man didn't straighten his posture, but he did bow deeply, and his elderly companion did the same.

Lawliet looked up, and Hades found himself staring into a pair of deep, unblinking gray eyes that reminded him strangely of Athena's. "Shinigami," he repeated in a cool monotone. "That is how Kira has his power. No," he corrected himself, "Light Yagami. Light Yagami is the holder and user of the Death Note, and is possessed by a Shinigami. Light Yagami is Kira."

Kira… Death Note… Shinigami. So they were up to their tricks again. Hades stared down imperiously at the slouching detective before him, nodded briskly once, and then slunk back into the shadows.

In the end, Lawliet and Quillsh Wammy both received Elysium, which the former was rather ecstatic about seeing as there were strawberry fields and cherry trees in his backyard.

But Hades was a bit preoccupied to think about these things as he shadow traveled to the outskirts of the Fields of Punishment. They were, for the most part, dead wastelands, where no one would go… except the Shinigami.

All of the Shinigami scrambled to their feet –– or whatever standing apparatuses they possessed; as in Midora's case she just looked up –– when the Lord of the Underworld walked out of the shadows. His cold, calculating gaze swept over them. "Where are Ryuk and Rem?" he snapped.

The Shinigami traded nervous glances. "Your Majesty, Lord Hades," said Nu, the highest ranking Shinigami, "Ryuk has traveled down to the human world, and Rem… it seems that she is, er, dead."

"Dead," repeated Hades flatly. "How so? Did Gelus's habits rub off on her?"

"Er, it seems so," replied Nu. "She used her Death Note to kill two men named, um, Lawliet and Quillsh Wammy, I believe, to save a girl named Misa Amane, the same one for whom Gelus sacrificed himself. Preposterous, I say."

"Then who is holding the Death Note now?" demanded Hades.

Nu hesitated. "A young man named Light Yagami."

Hades inclined his chin, his face an unreadable mask. "That is… interesting. Thank you."

"It was our honor, your majesty," Nu said, bowing again. The rest of the Shinigami bowed to their king as he strode away and melted into the shadows.

* * *

The criminals continued to die at the same rapid pace.

For about five years and three months, that is.

* * *

On January 28, 2010, Nico di Angelo became the first living mortal in over seventy years to witness the judges do their job as they condemned the dead. "Isn't it fascinating?" asked his father, his eyes glued to the scene below them.

Ten-year-old Nico just slumped lower in his chair. "Yeah. Intriguing."

It was the things like this that made him wish that he had just stayed on the streets, instead of coming down here to the Underworld and confronting the god he now knew was his father. But, as Alecto had told him as she had dragged him down to said Underworld, it was either Hades's palace or back to Camp Half-Blood. He would undoubtfully be killed by monsters or forced into Kronos's army if he stayed the untrained, weaponless wanderer that he had made himself out to be.

It was the scream that caught his attention and brought him out of his thoughts. So close to the Fields of Punishment, screams were common things to hear. But this scream was closer, louder, and not entirely… human. At least, it did not sound so. Nico looked up from his shoes, and stared at the sight below the balcony.

A young man, maybe in his early twenties, was being dragged into the judgment hall by two skeleton guards, who held him by the arms. His brownish-orange hair was streaked with blood and fell in front of his wide, almost insane eyes. His clothes looked like they might have once been fine and crisp, but now they were tattered and stained with blood. He was a grown man, but he was shrieking and kicking his feet like a child.

"NOOOOOO!" he screeched in a voice that almost sounded inhuman. "LET ME GO! Please, just let me go! I'm not dead, I'm not dead, this is all just a dream, Ryuk didn't kill me…"

"Oh, just shut up," said Minos irritably as the obviously delusional soul was dropped before the three judges' chairs. "You're DEAD, Light Yagami."

Nico briefly noticed that his father stiffened upon hearing the name, but he thought little of it.

"All right, where can we begin?" said Aeacus, one of the cheerier judges in the Underworld. "Oh yes. Light Yagami, alias Kira, alias L the second. Born February 28, 1986; died January 28, 2010; cause of death: heart attack."

"Ryuk was a traitor!" screamed Yagami. "He lied to me! He said there was no such thing as heaven or hell! HE KILLED ME!"

"That's it," muttered Hades, standing up and melting into the shadows. "I hate these nutcases."

"Father –– " Nico tried to say, but before he could even get out of his chair he saw that Hades had somehow appeared below the balcony, and was striding towards the insane Light Yagami with the gait of a king.

"Of course he did," said Hades coolly as he approached the young man. "Shinigami have tendencies to do that."

"But why?" demanded Yagami, scrambling over to Hades and gripping the hem of his robe. The souls trapped in Hades's clothes started getting agitated at the touch of an outside soul, and Nico wondered if he was the only one who heard their echoing screams. "Why me? I was the good guy! I was using the Death Note to help the world! I gave him apples!"

_Apples?_ wondered Nico momentarily.

"Killing people," said Hades calmly, "is never 'good', no matter if the victim is an innocent or a criminal. Do you remember those forty seconds of terror you felt after Ryuk told you that he had written your name? No, not terror –– _terror_ is too weak of a word to describe what you felt, is it not? You caused hundreds –– no, _thousands_ of people to feel that. And you call that GOOD?"

Hades's voice escalated into a bellow, and before Light Yagami could act, the Lord of the Underworld's foot shot out and caught him in the stomach, sending him flying backwards a couple meters. The young man didn't move for a second, then he coughed and struggled to his knees. In his brown eyes was pure hatred as he hissed, "Who are you?"

Hades smiled a cold, cheerless smile. "Some call me Hades," he replied. "You might know me better as the Shinigami King." He turned on his heel and strode away, waving his hand to the judges. "Fields of Punishment. No more evidence is needed for this one."

Nico watched from the balcony as his father vanished into the shadows. He saw the young man named Light Yagami struggling as the Furies dragged him to the Fields of Punishment. And he wondered what, exactly, the young man had done, and what, exactly, a Shinigami was. And why was his father king of them?

Shrugging, Nico got up from his chair and walked down the hallway with his hands in his pockets, trying to block out the agonized screams of the condemned murderer.

* * *

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